A wooden native house in rural Magsaysay, Cuyo.

Cuyo is in blue In October of 2006, I visited the remote islands of Cuyo and Culion in Palawan for a photography assignment and passed Negros and Iloilo in transit. This is my account of that journey.

This is the 8th of a seriesHaving a free afternoon in the town proper, I hailed a tricycle and went to the next municipality of Magsaysay. I was looking for other old churches but found none*. While walking around, I found this wooden house. It was beautiful. While abodes like this are common in the rural areas in the provinces, this one was a lot bigger than what I have seen, say in Oslob or Boljoon in Cebu.

Typical of its construction, it is elevated with wooden posts. The first level is where chickens, farm implements and in this case, the owner’s motorcycle is kept. The second level is where the family live. I was happy to see its sliding windows still have its white capiz shells.

Note: I totally missed the ruins of the fortress of Lucbuan, an 18th century defense structure built to guard against Muslim slave raiders. I only knew of this one when, on the night I was to depart for Coron, an old woman told me about it.

Coconut meat being dried for copra.

From the house, I went to the shed for a tricycle for the trip back to Cuyo town proper but, typical in provinces, vehicles were quite seldom. While waiting, a tricycle came laiden with cut coconut meat to dry at the town’s open ground doubling as children’s playground. One of the main products of the island, copra, will be dried, and later, processed to extract its oil.

An afternoon of sepak takraw…

A few minutes later, schoolchildren arrived. Must be that their classes have ended as from a few, they were now everywhere: playing sepak takraw, flying a kite, riding a bicycle, running around. Some saw my camera and started fooling around so that they will be photographed. Some were also asking me where I was from, what I was doing as these kids doesn’t seem to see much visitors.

…kite flying…

After an hour, and several photo frames later, I decided to go on my way. As there were still no tricycles that will travel back to the Cuyo town center, I decided to just walk. After about 30 minutes on the road, at last, one came and I hopped on.

…and a top!

One of the joys of going on trips to rural areas is to experience and see the simple lives of people in these places. Life is just slow paced, no traffic, of course, and most important of all, folks are just friendly and cheerful.

Estan Cabigas is a multiawarded blogger and freelance photographer based in Makati City, the Philippines. A true blue Cebuano, he makes stunning images and meaningful photo stories. He has writtten for CNN Go and his photograph will be published in the May 2010 issue of the National Geographic Magazine.

To know more about him and his photography, visit estancabigas.com.